Oak Park and Racine May 2007

We spent our 1st year LID on a long weekend trip to Chicago doing Frank Lloyd Wright tours. It was a blast. We stayed in Oak Park but took a day trip to Racine Wisconsin to see the SC Johnson Administration building and Wingspread. Frank Lloyd Wright was hired by Herbert Fisk Johnson, grandson of the founder of SC Johnson & Sons, to build the administration building in 1936. This building is architecturally significant but I found Wingspread more interesting. Wingspread was the 14,000 square foot home the Johnson's hired FLW to design soon after the admin building was completed. Their home was built in 1938 - 39. In 1959 the Johnson's moved to an adjacent home and donated Wingspread to the Johnson Foundation to be used as an international educational conference facility. I found it interesting that NPR was created from a conference at Wingspread. The center of Wingspread is the living/ working area that Wright called the "wigwam". FLW called the brickwork here the best he'd ever seen. The 3rd picture shows me walking towards the front entrance of Wingspread and the 4th picture shows me in the daughter's original bedroom in one of the wings.

After our Racine daytrip we toured FLW's Oak Park home, studio and several of the homes he designed. The 2nd to last picture above is of the Beachy house and the last picture is the Heurtley House. The Heurtley house was built in 1902 and is one of FLW's earliest prairie style homes. This style's main designation is it's horizontal lines, thought to be like prairie landscapes. The Heurtley house's interior was considered unique because it reversed traditional American home layout with the living and dining areas on the top floor of the house.

On Sunday of that weekend spouse and I had just enough time to go to Unity Temple Universalist Unitarian Church (FLW 1905) for service before catching our flight home. This was well worth it. The light, accoustics and seating are just amazing. The unique seating design gives everyone in the congregation optimal proximity to the pulpit. This church was built for around $60,000. FLW used concrete to keep costs down. Because concrete was new as a building material at this time they did not know to allow expansion joints which caused some issues over time. In 2005 a multi million dollar renovation was done to replace the central heating and add cooling using some of the most environmentally friendly technology available today.

International Adoption article

Ok I copied this AP article about international adoption because I think it is the best explanation I've read in awhile. It is somewhat dated ... updated info in red. Wednesday, March 05, 2008 The State of IA Foreign adoptions declineBy DAVID CRARYAssociated PressThe number of foreign children adopted by Americans has dropped for the third year in a row, a consequence of tougher policies in the two countries -- China and Russia -- that over the past decade have supplied the most children to U.S. families.Figures for the 2007 fiscal year showed that adoptions from abroad have fallen to 19,411, down about 15 percent in just the past two years.It's a dramatic change. The number of foreign adoptions had more than tripled since the early 1990s, reaching a peak of 22,884 in 2004 before dipping slightly in 2005, then falling to 20,679 in 2006."A drop in international adoptions is sad for children," said Thomas Atwood, president of the National Council for Adoption. "National boundaries and national pride shouldn't get in the way of children having families."Adoptions from China, the No. 1 source country since 2000, fell to 5,453. That's down by 1,040 from last year and well off the peak of 7,906 in 2005. Two main factors lie behind this: an increase in domestic adoptions as China prospers and tighter restrictions on foreign adoptions that give priority to stable married couples between 30 and 50 and exclude single people, the obese and others with financial or health problems. [The first part is true, China has increased their domestic adoptions. However, the new restrictions, applicable to those submitting dossiers after May 1, 2007, have not affected any families being referred children now. There simply were more dossiers submitted than there were children ready for IA, which led to China instituting the new restrictions. - ed.]One consequence, adoption agencies say, is that the waiting time to complete an adoption from China has more than doubled to 24 months or more. [It's more. The most recent batch of referrals, which arrived this week, are for dossiers logged in between December 28, 2005 and January 4, 2006, so the wait is now up to 26 months. - ed.]Adoptions from Russia also dropped sharply over the past year -- from 3,706 to 2,310. Russian authorities suspended the operations of all foreign adoption agencies for several months earlier this year and have been reaccrediting them only gradually. Like China, Russia has been trying to boost the number of domestic adoptions.U.S. adoptions from South Korea and Haiti also declined significantly, although the overall drop was partially offset by large increases in adoptions from Guatemala (up from 4,135 to 4,728), Ethiopia (732 to 1,255) and Vietnam (163 to 626).Tom DeFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services, said adoptions from Guatemala could decline over the coming year as its government -- under intense international pressure -- tries to impose tough new regulations on an adoption industry that was widely viewed as susceptible to fraud and extortion.The State Department has advised Americans not to initiate adoption applications for Guatemala while that overhaul is under way. The proposed reforms are required under an international adoption treaty, the Hague Convention, which both Guatemala and the United States have agreed to adhere to starting next year.Overall, DeFilipo -- whose council represents many international adoption agencies -- found reason for optimism in the new statistics."What you're seeing is fewer countries sending very large numbers of children and a broader range of countries participating," he said. "Over the long term, I think this is a healthy trend."He mentioned Kenya, Peru and Brazil as countries not now among the major sources of children, but which might increase international adoptions in coming years.Michele Bond, deputy assistant secretary of state for overseas citizen services, also viewed the new figures positively."Interest in intercountry adoption remains very strong," she said in a telephone interview. "People are increasingly well-informed. They're more likely to look at new countries instead of always looking at the same small number of countries."By contrast, another adoption expert, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Bartholet, depicted the new numbers as "totally depressing."She said China and Russia reflected a trend in which countries opened themselves up to international adoption, then scaled back. She attributed this in part to UNICEF and other international organizations encouraging countries to care for children within their homeland, even when domestic programs such as foster care might be inadequate.[This is interesting; I'd never heard this about UNICEF before. - ed.]"UNICEF is a major force," Bartholet said. "They've played a major role in jumping on any country sending large number of kids abroad, identifying it as a problem rather than a good thing."UNICEF's child protection spokesman, Geoffrey Keele, said the U.N. agency does believe it is preferable to care for orphaned or abandoned children in their own countries if good homes could be found for them."The best interests of the child must be the guiding principle," he said. "We don't go about discouraging international adoption. We just want to be sure it's done properly."Thomas Atwood, of the National Council for Adoption, said there should be no competition between domestic and international adoption. With an estimated 143 million orphans worldwide, he said, there was enough need to go around.[Amen to that. - ed.]For U.S.-based adoption agencies, the biggest impact has been on those specializing in placing children from China.The president of one of the largest such groups, Joshua Zhong of Colorado-based Chinese Children Adoption International, said the agency had placed about 620 children this year, down from about 1,200 in 2005, while average waiting times had increased from nine months to two years.Some clients are so committed to adopting a Chinese child that they are willing to wait, Zhong said. "Others say forget about it."

Block Party, Moon Festival and Remnants of Hurricane Ike

BLOCK PARTY 2008 Later today is our annual block party. I have lived in our neighborhood for 18 years (yikes I'm old) and spouse has lived here something like 12 years. He got transferred out of town a couple of times ... before we met. Kinda interesting in a Harry Met Sally way is that spouse and I lived on the same street for 2 years and never met. Anyhoo, back to the block party. This is always fun ... we have great neighbors. Lots of different interests, occupations, travels, etc.

Update since Block Party: It was fun. We finally met "the piper". One of the new neighbors plays his bagpipe on his roof deck. He is really good and it is really cool. His wife and he just moved here from London. We met another couple of neighbors who are getting married next week. The weather was really great ... that drastically changed 24 hours later (above picture).

REMNANTS OF HURRICANE IKE Sunday afternoon Cincinnati experienced over 70 mph winds causing widespread damage and at least 1/2 million people w/o power. At around 3:30 PM I saw this tree snap and fall on these 2 cars while I was scheduling our roofer to come look @ roof of one of our apts b/c of these winds. The picture above was where we had our block party less than 24 hours earlier. The winds are died down by 6 PM. We never lost power but 85% of Cincinnati did and it may not be fully restored for a week. Spouse saw one down line when he came to pick me up from one of apts I was working in. This storm shook our entire house at times, the wind coming down the chimney flues made a low sound and we could hear siding pulling off homes outside. Lucy, our cat,was totally relaxed almost bored during the whole windstorm.

MOON FESTIVAL

Today is Moon Festival also known as Autumn Festival in China. This is China's 2nd most important national holiday and all their offices are closed. This holiday celebrates when the Ming Dynasty began. The Ming's hid secret messages in mooncakes which helped them to throw out the Mongols. Also a holiday to celebrate fall harvest with fruit, rice and stories. Some of the famous fable characters include: the Jade Rabbit (who lives on the moon), the Lady Chang Er (who floated to the moon) and Wu Kang (who cannot leave the moon & returns to earth until he succesfully chops down a magical tree.)

The Garden Part 1

We live in an urban neighborhood on one of the 7 hills that surrounds Cincinnati, Ohio. Our home was build in 1874 soon after the incline to our neighborhood was completed. We are fairly certain our property was part of Nicolas Longworth's vineyard in the 1840-50's. Longworth has been called the "father of American wine making" ... an interesting story for another post. Below is a picture of our backyard before we started our garden renovation in Spring 2006.

The next picture was taken in spring 2008.

Below is a picture of the guys removing the hackberry trees, shrubs etc. on April 25, 2006.

The next picture shows how steep the slope was. Our landscapers were really were gutsy guys. This picture also shows the old (completely rotted) RR ties steps. These steps were replaced with brick steps, some of these bricks were originally used to build our home.

After the landscapers finished spouse and I needed to ammend the soil (lots of clay). Then we could finally start planting! The next 2 pictures are of us planting perennials. I got my hat from Siagon Market at Findlay (our downtown farmer's market). The last picture is of Lucy who adores the garden.

Where to start our story

The picture above was taken on May 10, 2006. I was assembling our dossier paperwork (originals + 2 sets of copies) to take to Fed-Ex to send to FTIA, our international agency. FTIA reviewed our dossier very quickly and sent it to China, specifically China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) on May 12, 2006. This date became our DTC (date to China). Our dossier was logged in @ CCAA on May 18, 2006. We had an LID! I remember appreciating that we have a copier at home. Copying and collating such personal information, not to mention important documents, at home was great. I also distinctly remember the relief I felt at Fed Ex knowing the paperchasing was over. Man 2 years + later I am still glad that paperchasing is over. I think I disliked this part of the process more than the average adoptive parent. So what have we been doing in the last 28 months since our LID? Well, for one thing we both have jobs, which fortunately we both like with the addtional bonux of basically no commute. Spouse works from home most days. I work part-time in our neighborhood & part-time job at the conservatory (1/2 mile from home). We have traveled, gone to many plays, extensively re-modeled 2 apartments, lots of Reds games, and attended many cool events at the Art Museum & Krohn. We have also extensively re-worked our garden and adopted the next door neighbors 10 year cat, Lucy. The neighbors newborn son had allergy issues and we were happy to help. Lucy has been a great addition to our home. So here is our timeline of how we got to our LID:

* August 05 we contracted with Lutheran Social Services to do our homestudy. LSS was responsible for assigning a social worker to interview us and write our homestudy. A homestudy is a detailed report about us ... our education, finances, jobs, health, adoption motivation, etc.) After our homestudy was completed our chosen international agency manages our adoption until our baby is home. Then after baby has been home for 6 months our LSS social worker will come to our home again to interview us and right a report for the CCAA. * August 05 we completed classes on parenting adopted children with LSS * October 05 we contracted with Families Through International Adoption to manage our international side of our adoption.

* Sept - November 05 Parenting classses and background paperwork for our social worker prior to our homestudy interviews. After we did all this we could schedule our interviews (one @ LSS office and one in our home).

* Sometime in the fall we got fingerprinted and criminal background checks. We have been fingerprinted 4 times so far and if we go past December 08, entirely possible, we will have to be fingerprinted again. It costs $80 each to get fingerprinted.

* Dec 05 - Jan 06 Completed interviews with our social worker. We both like our SW. She is very kind and easy going which made the interview process not bad at all. We had really bad snowstorms that December and had to re-schedule our in home interviews at least once.

* Jan 06 Our Completed Homestudy was sent to FTIA. This means our SW really worked fast. Our homestudy is 8 pages single spaced about us.

*Jan - May 06 Collected dossier documents. These included birth certificates, marriage certificate, letter/petition to CCAA to adopt, homestudy, health exams, financial statements, employment verification, criminal background check, etc. All of these documents have various notary, county, state and one secreatary of state seal. The last document we collected for our dossier was another copy of spouses birth certificate with all the required stamps and seals. The first one had expired.

I remember spouse and I were so happy to have an LID. I know we went out to dinner that night at one of our favorite restaurants in the neighborhood. We thought that in 6-8 months from then we would be traveling to China and becoming parents. Little did we know our wait woud be a bit longer.